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Tacoma spends $75K to launch community-led, anti-racist team. Applications now open
Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards knows that it might not be smooth sailing.
But creating a community-led group that features voices most impacted by systemic racism was one of City Council’s goals when it passed a commitment for anti-racist transformation across the city in June.
“I anticipate it will be messy, because we’re going to all learn together what it really means to give voice to community,” Woodards told The News Tribune in an interview on Friday.
On Tuesday, the group, currently termed “Heal the Heart of Tacoma,” began accepting applications from the public for its Core Coordinating Team.
The initial team will have 13 appointed members, approximately half of whom should be Black, according to the city. Asian, Pacific Islander, Indigenous and Latinx perspectives also are desired.
Applications are available at cityoftacoma.org and will be accepted through Nov. 9. The city’s Community Vitality and Safety Committee will select the appointees.
The team will be responsible for:
Building a process to identify priorities for anti-racist systems transformation in Tacoma.
Incorporating reconciliation work to acknowledge the past and present harms of systemic racism.
Determining a method for selecting members of transformation teams from across Tacoma to conduct systems transformation/change work in priority areas set by people of color.
Participating in community organizing and relationships.
The 13 Core Coordinating Team members will act as an umbrella group to smaller “transformation teams” in various areas, from policing to education, inviting local organizations to the table.
It is anticipated that the Core Coordinating Team will meet every one to two weeks through a start-up period, likely March 2021.
The city passed a resolution committing $75,000 so far to the effort.
Heal the Heart stands for “Helping Empower and Live” (HEAL), while Heart represents the areas work: health and housing (H), education and environment and economy (E), access and art (A), resources and relationships (R) the city wants to transform (T).
The effort is something the city hasn’t tried before, Woodards said, in that there will be less control and involvement by city staff.
“One of the things that was really important to us is that while city staff and policy makers will be engaged in Heal the Heart, we want it to be a neutral facility,” she said.
City Council passed a resolution in June committing to an anti-racist transformation in response after receiving thousands of emails and countless telephone calls and seeing citywide demonstrations on police brutality, calling on the community to address the impacts of systemic racism.
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